Sizewell: another win for French nuclear blackmail

Among the large numbers bandied around by Rachel Reeves was of course well over £10bn of UK money for Sizewell C: and FID is yet to be taken!  Exactly whether this dosh is envisaged as outright cash (as has been the case with the billions already gifted to EDF, even before FID), or dumped straight onto electricity bills, or a combination, I have not yet discerned.  

It's still outrageous - at best a humongous leap of faith, the beneficiary of which is a French concern (and indeed the French state) that has proven itself many, many times over to be unworthy of trust in such matters.  In return for what?  A plant that, even on the most ambitious and optimistic assumptions, could not be generating electricity before the next-Parliament-but-two, and in the meantime will have cost all of us a great deal of non-returnable money.  Who said politicians' horizons extend only as far as the next election at best, and the next headline at worst?

Well of course none of this is to be taken at face value.  They are already pitching for headlines reading "thousands of jobs", although as we know, the hi-tech jobs involved will without doubt be squarely located in France.  The sop of a bit of civil engineering for UK firms - and not even 100% of that, if Hinkley Point C is any guide, which of course it is explicitly meant to be!  If Keynesianism is the guiding theory, you could get a great deal more for your money on vastly more useful civil engineering projects that might actually make some kind of economic return decades sooner than SZC ever could.  Just keeping the money in the UK would be a start. 

And of course there are other short-term considerations, the giveaway being Mr Frog who, on the exact subject of demanding more money for both SZC and HPC (for which, contractually, EDF has sole responsibility) recently stated: "We [UK + France] need to stick together on many subjects - on Ukraine, on all dimensions of our relationship".  We may be sure he really means "cooperation on Small Boats", the carrot of which which the French continually dangle, and then promptly withdraw a couple of weeks later.  Oh, and we must pay for that "cooperation", too.  Such an easy game.

Why are successive UK PMs and Chancellors such soft touches?  Blair, Brown, Cameron, Osborne, May, Hammond, Johnson, Starmer, Reeves ... it's only been Sunak who has ever demurred, and then without any meaningful force.  The rest have all danced to EDF's protracted, staccato jig.  I despair.

ND

Government spraying big numbers up the wall

A range of vital skills and instincts are frequently found lacking in the populace at large, and often also in places where they are badly needed.  Numeracy is one: adequate skepticism concerning the Voice of Authority is another; and, the vital ability to conduct a two-second "do we believe this?" credibility check.

So: WTF can it possibly mean when we read:

Rachel Reeves is set to unveil an £86bn package for science and technology in next week’s spending review 

??   This is "expected to be worth more than £22.5 billion-a-year by 2029".  We know she's recently decided that government capital expenditure needs have no upper limit, but what on earth does anyone imagine this "package" means?  For calibration: the entire UK defence budget is about £60 bn this year, and the government's existing R&D spending somewhat less than £20bn right now.  Government S&T money for the higher education sector is in low single-digit billions. 

OK, higher education isn't the only place where government S&T money is spent, but unless Reeves has just "unveiled" the existing £20bn R&D budget slightly re-classified, how is the balance of "22bn p.a. by 2029" going to be doled out, and to whom?  Either (a) we can ignore it because it's empty; (b) it's gonna be pretty inflationary in some sector or other; or (c) it'll be embezzled on a large scale for purposes not really encompassed by "science & technology": I can see the queues forming already.

I suppose some people ignore these things anyway: but all too many supposedly fact-checked media outlets print them uncritically, and one kinda supposes they are half-believed, in a vague sort of way.  Maybe Reeves thinks that all those Trump-fleeing US academics will read it, and jump on the next plane for Blighty.

But who, exactly, rushes to vote Labour on the back of all this?  I think they'll find there's a great deal more focus on their failure to deliver, e.g., 1.5m new houses and cheaper electricity, come 2029.  Because fail is what they are gonna do. 

ND

Pimping property: update - new agent on the job!

Recap: the estate agent's art has been on full display in the attempt to shift a pair of costly new-build white elephants down the road from Schloss Drew, replete with misleading CGI images and hilariously inventive euphemisms.  

Now, perhaps because there has been no obvious movement on selling these large, smart, luxurious but hopelessly impractical properties (seven bedrooms but no garage, very difficult vehicular access, built into the side of a hill on a busy main road), a new estate agent has joined the fray.  And - all credit to them - they present honest images!  Here's the photo they honourably display of the right-hand property as completed; and below, for comparison, the risible CGI we showed before.

In the flesh: steep, narrow front with retaining walls 

In the first agent's blurb: broad, gently sloping driveway

And here's the steep back garden, which didn't previously feature at all.

And where the first agent quoted a steep price but artificially lowered the front aspect, the second agent accurately shows the steep front ... and quotes a lowered price.  (see what I did there, hahah).  Yes, the price has been dropped!  Well, well.   At £1.65m, though, still pricey - relative to what else that money can get you in the same neighbourhood (i.e. level plot, quiet road, big garden, expansive drive, big garage etc etc, and still very large & fine accommodation).

It must be said, some of the rooms look splendid indeed, and new-build is new-build, all mod cons and warranties too.  Maybe somewhere there really is a very large family of wealthy, hill-climbing hermits who ride only bicycles and public buses, don't need anything delivered to the front door, and very much want to live in spacious luxury on a main road.  In Croydon.

Maybe.  I'll keep you posted.

ND

 

Even Russians find North Korea weird

... though these days, such is the sheer strength of Putin's international positioning, they must be very, very nice to them.  And send them lots of tourists, in gratitude for all the, errr, fraternal bullets and artillery rounds.  And cannon fodder.

So let's see if the Russian magazine piece at this link gets fraternally taken down in the coming days.  (If so, it's archived already: https://archive.ph/k8ULv)  Nothing you wouldn't expect, but revealing nonetheless. 

During the tours, the guides allowed tourists to approach and communicate with supposedly ordinary residents, but Valentina was alerted that they all spoke good English...  And they spoke in the same memorized phrases - that they have everything thanks to their leaders and these are not just leaders, but their fathers, whom they worship. "One of our guides once said that they are like little children holding the leader's hand and do not ask where to go. Because their father always knows everything - what needs to happen, where their direction is, where the country is heading. I thought, this is an interesting comparison with small children. It really seemed to me that they perceive everything as little children," the girl said.  

Some impressive weaponry in the arsenal, for all that. 

ND

"Military Keynsianism" - Starmer's defence pitch

Starmer is an odd bloke: rarely willing to promote a policy on its own merits**, preferring to invoke (or invent) some supposed side-benefits and focus on them.  "Net zero" and renewables?  No mention of zero-what these days; it's all "growth & jobs", "cheaper energy" (yeah, right), "home-grown / less threat from Putin" and "energy security" (always the last refuge of a scoundrel) instead.

Now we have his Defence *aspirations* (or whatever 3% of GDP at some unspecified future date should be termed), and we're to think of them as Military Keynsianism: "a defence dividend for the British people, using this moment to drive jobs and investment throughout the country, providing local opportunities, skilled work, community pride".

It is, I suppose, just possible that a round of additional defence contracts - if such can be conjured out of Reeves' Treasury plans - will result in some of those things.  But if, as so often, it all descends into pork-barrel politics - e.g. Gordon Brown's risible aircraft carriers, oft discussed here - does anything worthwhile come out from the defence point of view?  Much as I'd like to think it would, I have me doubts as they say.

PS: what's a "10-times more lethal army", pray? 

ND 

UPDATE:  quite a good Graun / Martin Kettle piece today, here:  Why is defence such a hard sell for Starmer?  (Did he, or the headline writer, read my post before posing that question??)

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** By contrast, his recent immigration policy statement was promoted on the back of it being "right - because it is fair, and because it is what I believe in", Boris Johnson's opening of the immigration floodgates being a "squalid chapter".  Heady stuff.  Farage concentrates the mind wonderfully.